Fox In The Henhouse

Ruth Marcus makes a good point (although, of course, she has to throw in what I've come to refer to as "balance dicta," opining that "some people in the Clinton administration may have been sleazy too") in today's WaPo:

[T]here is something in the "loyal Bushies" mind-set of this administration and its fundamental scorn for government that contributes to . . . arrogant misbehavior.

If your faith is more in the operations of the private sector than in the capacity of government, if you have scant commitment to the laws you are pledged to enforce, if you see government less as a trust to be administered than a force to be used for the benefit of political and ideological allies, then this kind of behavior is the inevitable result.

In short, if you identify so completely with the foxes, it's no wonder that you end up with a henhouse that is so thoroughly, tragically trashed.

Marcus has lots of examples, ranging from, Eric Keroack, [whose] suitability for the family planning post, in which he was responsible for overseeing the distribution of contraceptives to low-income women [was that he] was director of a group that finds contraception "demeaning to women" and won't distribute it -- even to married women, to Michael Baroody, a top official at the National Association of Manufacturers, [whom Bush named] to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission -- the agency charged with protecting consumers against the dangerous products of, yes, manufacturers, to Julie MacDonald, the official who oversees the Fish and Wildlife Service but who has no academic background in biology, [and who] overrode the recommendations of agency scientists about how to protect endangered species [and] shared internal documents with industry officials and groups that lobby for weakened environmental protections, not to mention an online gaming buddy, to J. Steven Griles, a coal lobbyist who became the No. 2 official at the Interior Department. The list could go on and on.

Many were startled to learn that Bush's main expert on Iraq has been a thirty-seven year old. It's also been an eye-opener for some to learn just how many people in high positions in the Bush junta come out of whackjob fundie diploma mills.

Marcus is right. What this junta has done is thoroughly tragic. Heckuva job, Sandra Day. Heckuva job.